Mexico City

220 with a drink for mole poblano in the centre is a fair price. If anyone goes, eat a cemita as well. The proper ones come on a sesame roll with papalo, which tastes like coriander that has been to war, and you will either love it or you will pick it out and leave it on the plate. There is a run of stands in the Mercado del Carmen. I paid 90 pesos in February for one the size of my head and did not eat again until nine at night.

Thirteen hours door to door for two towns is a lot of day. I did Puebla on my own on the ADO bus from TAPO in March, two hours each way, and had the same afternoon in the centre for a fraction of what a car and driver costs. Cholula is a 40 peso colectivo once you are on that side. If you can sleep on a bus the sums are not close.

I take the point about the bus and we travel that way in plenty of places, but I do not think it ends up being the same day. We took a car and driver for Cholula because my partner cannot manage long stretches of standing, and waiting at a bus station at seven in the evening in July rain would have cost us the following day as well. With two of us the gap per head is narrower than it first looks, and you get the volcano stretch of road in daylight in both directions. Different trips suit different bodies, that is all I mean by it.